Advertising the Mudblood Club PV Galim Fin

Though it was the first time he'd seen the Muggle Studies professor smile since he'd approached her, Jack wasn't sure if it was more a relief or a comforting sight than it was an unnerving one. He knew one too many people who smiled when they were most angry to not exercise caution by putting up his guard. Her words when she spoke again, though, only served to puzzle him even more.

"Well...I guess I can understand why you might say your opinions might not matter as a teacher of your subject," he told her thoughtfully, "but...can't I ask your opinion as a person - a fellow muggle-born? Er, and y'know..." His cheeks became slightly pink. "...since I'm not exactly a student of yours yet."

'Be aware of his surroundings'? What surroundings did she mean? The classroom? The school? The student body? Society?

But no, this did not seem the sort of teacher who meant to give those who sought to learn from her a direct answer. She seemed more the type who preferred to allow them to make their own discoveries, only guiding them when they came to the wrong conclusion or got lost along the way. Jack could respect that; he enjoyed challenges, riddles, and other attempts to test ones' intelligence.

It was just a bit frustrating when he knew Professor Galim must have seen some flaws in his arguments and was not making them known to him. If she didn't, who was to say anyone ever would? He supposed he could only hope there would be someone eventually who did. Until then, he supposed he and his club would carry on with what they were doing. For the most part, anyway.

"Mmm...maybe I'll wait until I'm a third year and can take your class myself," Jack answered, glancing at his bag. "Maybe I'll understand more of what you mean by then. But uh...one more thing before I go?"

His expression was, once again, uncharacteristically tentative. "That...that word you said. Uh...'Auch-chav'?" The Slytherin timidly scratched his head. "Um...what language is that? And what does it mean?"

@Maya Galim

It was true that he was not her student as of yet. She could tell that he would be an excellent student in the coming years, but that did not mean she was going to treat him differently because he was not her pupil. "Mr. Burnett, my opinion will have no value to you. You're stubborn in your own ways and that is fine. My words will not change your mind but rather let you be aware of your future experiences," she said flatly.

Was this impromptu meeting about the end? She looked at the time and it had been a good half an hour to forty-five minutes of interacting with @Jack Burnett. She wondered if it was too good to be true, but then, he questioned her language. Maya, of course, was not at all offended by it. She liked it when people asked questions that related to understanding different cultures. She even liked that he tried to pronounce it.

"It is in Hebrew. I'm from Israel," she said, her Israeli accent thickening. She had been working on not sounding too Israeli for awhile now, but sometimes after she speaks Hebrew or when she thinks of her homeland, she tends to revert back to her accented ways. "It means 'now'," she added, telling him the translation he had asked for.

"So, עכשיו, is there anything else you need?" she asked, emphasizing the newly learned word to Jack.

At the mention of the woman's language and country of origin, he nodded slowly, trying to recall exactly where he had seen it on a map before. It was easier to recall for him than, say, Professor Zahid's country, since Libya wasn't as popular or prevalent in his studies of the world, but Israel was still relatively unknown to the first year. Keeping the word, language, and its associated place of usage in mind, Jack smiled briefly and told her, "Thank you. That's a neat word."

But boy's brow furrowed thinking over the teacher's comments regarding her opinion. He found himself confused yet again, but a little reluctant to voice his lack of understanding lest she took it as his simply being impertinent. In the end, he decided to risk it anyway. It would have been much worse, he concluded, to regret not having asked while he could.

"But, Professor...how can you say your opinion won't have any value to me?" he asked perplexedly, scratching his head. "Even if I don't agree with it or it doesn't change my actions, that doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't have any value at all, right? Why else would I ask if I honestly didn't think it would ever be able to have any impact on me?"

He tilted his head. "I mean, if you'd rather not tell me because you don't want to, that's one thing. But isn't it a little presumptive of you to say what will and won't have value or change my mind with such certainty? I thought I was the only one who would be able to determine such things."

@Maya Galim

Interacting with: @Jack Burnett

He keeps pushing...

Maya figured that at home, if he had any siblings at all, he was definitely the instigator. She can tell that he does not mean it, but to have a mind who is always looking for answers never does sit well with others. In a way, it was not sitting well with Maya either. She was unable to give him an answer because any answer she would give him he would be looking for more. It was to be never-ending.

"Now, if I go around and share with you my opinion and beliefs on the matter, how will you be able to experience and explore yours for yourself?" she asked, challenging his inquiries. It was true-- how else do teachers teach? Teachers should never give the answer to their students, never. Granted, they shouldn't put them in a spiral of confusion either, but given the circumstances, Maya wanted to stray away from the truth of her opinion. It wasn't going to teach him anything other than to battle against it and find more answers.

"Have you ever thought about joining Hogwarts' Model UN?" Maya asked, straightforwardly straying away from his questions. "You would make a fine representative," she added, standing up from her desk and walking around it towards the boy. She stood straight and gave him a small smile. She had already told him that he could leave his flyers and place them on her updates board. What more did the child want? Her opinions? Really? She wasn't going to share them. Maya had patience and his pushing wasn't going to wear her thin. Not one bit.

"I do have quite a bit of grading to attend to, Mr. Burnett," she said, hinting that there was nothing left to be said.

As it so happened, Jack was an only child, which was probably why he seemed to thrive on bothering interacting with other people even long after they hinted that they were sick of him. He also seemed to make a habit of testing people's limits; not because he wanted to get on their nerves, but because he was genuinely curious as to how far they were willing to go.

It seemed, however, that this was just about the end of Professor Galim's rope. Or, at least, as close to the end as Jack was willing to push her. It was something of a disappointment to him, admittedly, because he had expected a teacher's patience to have been a good deal greater than what he was perceiving of this one's, but maybe it was just an off day for her. Or she had a lot of work to do. Or she didn't want to deal with him until she had to as his actual professor.

If you share your opinion and beliefs on the matter, how would that have any negative impact whatsoever on my ability to experience and explore other opinions and beliefs for myself? he asked silently with a small frown, but dared not speak it aloud. In all honesty, he thought her words were rather arrogant in implying that he would have believed her truths to trump any and all others he might have learned in the future or already knew of, but clearly she didn't really want him to answer. What she wanted, he supposed from reading between the lines, was for him to leave her office and to leave her alone. And what was beginning to irk Jack was that, for some reason, she just wasn't directly asking him to.

"Never heard of it before," the first year admitted, resuming a neutral expression by the time the woman was asking about something called the Hogwarts' Model UN. Her...was it a compliment?...that he would 'make a fine representative prompted him to nod politely in gratitude for her praise. "Thank you, Professor. I'll have to look into it."

When she informed him that she had quite a bit of grading to attend to, the Welsh boy nodded once more in acknowledgment, made sure he had everything of his, bowed once more in final thanks, and then turned to walk out the door of the office.

@Maya Galim

Jack has left the thread.